Two very large development plans have recently been announced, on in the North and one in the South;

Exhibit A – Liverpool announces a £1.5 billion regeneration plan to improve the area around Liverpool station and one of the docks.

Exhibit B – Oxford University confirms it will be spending £1.8 billion on increasing the size of it’s estate by another ~30%.

No real point to this beyond the fact I found it an interesting contrast. I suppose it also proves there is more to this North-South divide than just government spending all the money on the south and it’s going to take more than a high speed railway link to fix the problem.

A new take on this old chestnut from a tunnelling perspective. Some of the high voltage cable circuits installed back in the 1960s are becoming ‘life expired’ and need replacing with new ones.

In Liverpool the plan is to dig up the roads, excavate a giant trench and put them in there, three years (or more) of disrupting the entire region that is apparently perfectly acceptable.

In contrast in London a vast sum of money is spent on building a tunnel instead of digging up local roads, disrupting traffic and winding up the locals.

Though of course you will always offend locals whatever you do, apparently the solution of ‘We’ll stop the construction works if you stop using electricity’ is not an acceptable form of community relations…